KARACHI, Nov 16: Chief of Muttahida Qaumi Movement Altaf Hussain has said the death of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was not a natural one. He described it as a “murder” in which the troika of feudal lords, generals and religious leaders was involved.
He made this comment in his telephonic address to an Iftar gathering organized by MQM’s Labour Division in Khursheed Memorial Hall, Azizabad, according to a handout released on Sunday.
Referring to the process of ushering in a revolution of the oppressed people, Mr Hussain traced the history of the feudal lords from War of Independence in 1857, formation of Indian National Congress in 1885 and creation of Muslim League in 1906.
He said the feudal lords belonging to the areas presently making up Pakistan openly opposed the Muslim league in the 1937 elections, with the result that the party lost in these Muslim majority provinces. However, when the Congress announced that it would abolish feudal system after independence, the entire lot of feudal lords joined Muslim League, he claimed.
This was the main reason why Muslim League swept the 1946 polls in the same provinces, he added. “It was evident that the feudal lords had no love for Pakistan and they just wanted to save their estates,” MQM chief said, adding: “After creation of Pakistan the feudal lords decided to remove Quaid-i-Azam from their way, in connivance with the generals.
“This is a fact that has never been made public,” he contended, narrating the journey of an ailing Quaid-e-Azam from Ziarat to Karachi and then from the airport to his residence in an ambulance having a fault and insufficient petrol. “The ambulance had to wait at a deserted place for hours for shortage of fuel, the condition of the Quaid deteriorated further and it resulted in his death afterwards,” he claimed.
“After the father of the nation, the first civilian prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead in a public meeting in Rawalpindi, “ Mr Hussain said. He added that in this way the eminent leaders of Pakistan movement were removed from the scene one after the other under a well planned conspiracy.
According to the MQM chief, the feudal lords supported Gen Ayub Khan and used abusive language against Fatima Jinnah. But when an era of industrialization began during the Ayub government, the feudal lords, sniffing threat to their feudal estates, joined the religious leaders and launched an agitation, resulting in its end.
He said the feudal leaders dubbed Bengalis as traitors who were not handed over power when Awami League swept the 1970 polls. The Jamaat-i-Islami was among the parties which opposed the transfer of power to Awami League and the feudal lords as well as the generals supported them, he claimed.
“Even today the religious scholars in collusion with the army generals and feudal lords are deceiving the people in the name of religion”, he said, adding: “They raise the slogan of Jihad to incite the religious sentiments of the public. It is a fact that no individual or organization can announce Jihad because this is the prerogative of the state or caliph”.
